About our plant

The Hyperion Treatment Plant is the City's oldest and largest wastewater treatment facility. The plant has been operating since 1894. The plant has been expanded and improved numerous times over the last 100+ years. Today, leading edge technological innovations capitalize upon the opportunity to recover wastewater bio-resources that are used for energy generation and agricultural applications. In addition, air emission controls and odor management facilities are integrated in all improvements. More of these forward thinking strategies will become realities at Hyperion in the coming years to better protect our coastal environment and serve our communities.

At a glance:

Location

12000 Vista del Mar, Playa del Rey

Serves

Entire City of Los Angeles (except Harbor area) and contract cities

Started operating

1925 as screening plant; 1950 as full secondary treatment plant

Plant manager

Steve Fan

Number of employees

388 (Fiscal Year 2010-11)

Annual budget

$77,215,716 (Fiscal Year 2010-11)

Treatment processes

Full secondary treatment, biosolids handling, biogas generation

Reuse data

500 tons of biosolids sent to Green Acres Farm per day as fertilizer and soil amendment, 45 tos of biosolids used per day to produce composting material, and 90 tons of biosolids sent to Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant per day for the Deep Well Injection Project; 7.5 million cubic feet of biogas converted to electricity per day

Contact us:

310-648-5856

History

The Early Years

In the late 1800s, wastewater from Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles was conveyed through natural waterways to the ocean. In 1892, the City purchased 200 acres of oceanfront property and from 1894 until 1925, raw sewage was discharged into near-shore ocean waters at Hyperion's future location.

Visitors to local beaches objected to raw sewage in their recreational waters and in response, the City of Los Angeles built and started operating the first treatment facility at the Hyperion site in 1925: a simple screening plant. This plant remained in operation until 1950.

1950 - A New Full Secondary Plant

The screening plant was not effective in preventing beach closures; highly polluted wastewater was still being discharged into near-shore waters. Just after the end of World War II, the City began to develop plans for a full secondary treatment plant at the Hyperion site. When the new Hyperion Treatment Plant opened in 1950, it included a full secondary treatment system and biosolids processing to produce a heat-dried fertilizer. It was among the first facilities in the world to capture energy from biogas by operating anaerobic digesters, which have yielded a fuel gas by-product for over 50 years. At the time, Hyperion was the first large secondary treatment plant on the West Coast, and one of the most modern facilities in the world.

Population Explosion

In the 1950s, the population of Los Angeles grew dramatically. To keep up with this growth and the associated higher wastewater flows, Hyperion’s treatment levels were cut back. By 1957, the new plant was discharging a blend of secondary and primary effluent through a five-mile ocean outfall. Hyperion also stopped its biosolids-to-fertilizer program and began discharging digested sludge into Santa Monica Bay through a separate, seven-mile ocean outfall.

1980s – Sludge out of Santa Monica Bay

Marine life in Santa Monica Bay suffered from the continuous discharge of 25 million pounds of wastewater solids (sludge) per month. Samples of the ocean floor where sludge had been discharged for 30 years demonstrated that the only living creatures were worms and a hardy species of clam. Additionally, coastal monitoring revealed that Bay waters often did not meet quality standards as the result of Hyperion’s effluent. These issues resulted in the City entering into a consent decree with the U.S. EPA and the State of California to built major facility upgrades at Hyperion. In 1980, Los Angeles launched a massive sludge-out to full secondary program to capture all biosolids and keep them from entering the Bay. The sludge-out portion of the program was completed in 1987.

1990s – Full Secondary System Rebuilt

The $1.6 billion sludge-out to full secondary construction program replaced nearly every 1950-vintage wastewater processing system at Hyperion while the plant continuously treated 350 mgd and met all NPDES permit requirements. The full secondary system, completed in 1998, meant:

treatment capacity was expanded to prevent virtually all minute particles suspended in effluent from being discharged to the ocean environment

production of the cleanest effluent in over 100 years

the end of wastewater spills at Hyperion

a 95% reduction in the amount of wastewater solids going into Santa Monica Bay

the elimination of the Bay's ecological dead-zone near the mouth of the sludge outfall

vast improvements in biological integrity of the bottom-dwelling marine community

remarkable increases in the relative abundance of many indicator-species

partnerships among the public, regulatory agencies, government and discharges that led to one of the great environmental achievements of the 20th Century.

Today, further improvements at Hyperion are being planned and built to keep the plant on the leading edge environmental protection. Air emission controls continue to represent the leading edge of technology. Odor management facilities are integrated in all improvements. Resource recovery programs capitalize upon every possible opportunity to recycle renewable resources of wastewater and sludge treatment by-products.